1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an instrument for molding a model by patterning a dentition of a patient with missing teeth and detecting a region for hooking a clasp that is a fixing means onto a tooth corresponding to an abutment tooth of the model for fixing a removable partial denture for filling up the missing teeth.
2. Description of Prior Art
In terms of dental technology, it is important to determine the mounting/demounting direction of a denture when constructing a removable partial denture, and a method of investigating the set state of an abutment tooth through the use of a model surveyor 1 shown in FIG. 1 has been heretofore adopted. In this method, a detecting needle referred to as an analyzing rod is applied to the side of an abutment tooth, the point of a clasp is hooked onto an undercut located under a contact point, and the denture is held in place by the elasticity of the clasp. Although it is conceivable that a denture thus designed is mounted/demounted in a direction parallel to the analyzing rod, the denture is moved out of place by the application of alternate side-to-side rotational motion. The conventional denture design, however, rotational motion is not analyzed thoroughly. In addition, as described in "Clasp Denture Providing a Rotational Path for the Mounting/Demounting of a Denture" (Quintessence of Dental Technology, December 1989, page 1523), among others, an interest has arisen in a mounting/demounting method for denture utilizing a rotational path, but instruments and apparatuses for executing such a method have not yet been proposed.